1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to techniques for managing scarce resources in distributed computing environments. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for tracking and managing heterogeneous resources for client systems in a distributed environment.
2. Related Art
Distributed computing environments are evolving towards a “commodity computing model,” in which various tasks may no longer exclusively execute on specific nodes. In such a model, resource consolidation and increased resource utilization are desirable, cost-effective goals. However, resource consolidation options may be limited in situations that involve: legacy systems, specialized hardware, system capacity limitations, and environments in which resources are distributed. Examples of such difficult-to-consolidate resources can include: specialized hardware support for encryption; specialized telecommunications links (e.g., satellite links); specialized hardware and/or software for video/audio compression and decompression; and third party services, such as print services, back-up services, and secure remote storage.
In typical systems, specialized hardware is only useful to a single computer system. For example, a hardware cryptography accelerator is often accessible only to processes that run on the same computer system, and may be under-utilized because it cannot be made available to remote processes in a distributed environment. As a result, computer systems that need occasional access to a given resource are often over-provisioned to include that resource, thereby leading to higher system cost and low average resource utilization.
Hence, what is needed is a method that facilitates managing heterogeneous resources without the above-described limitations.